Issue 51

D. Falliano et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 51 (2020) 189-198; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.51.15 189 Focussed on IGF25 – Fracture and Structural Integrity International Conference 2019 Influence of biochar additions on the fracture behavior of foamed concrete Devid Falliano, Dario De Domenico, Antonino Sciarrone, Giuseppe Ricciardi University of Messina, Italy dfalliano@unime.it, http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6676-9187 dario.dedomenico@unime.it, http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1279-9529 Luciana Restuccia, Giuseppe Ferro, Jean-Marc Tulliani Politecnico di Torino, Italy luciana.restuccia@polito.it, http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6999-0466 ferro@polito.it , http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0622-4203 Ernesto Gugliandolo G. Gugliandolo s.r.l., Messina, Italy ernestogugliandolo@hotmail.com A BSTRACT . The present study concerns the experimental investigation of foamed concretes with 1600 kg/m 3 density that incorporate biochar additions in the mix. A series of small notched beams are prepared to determine the fracture energy in CMOD (crack mouth opening displacement) mode and the mechanical properties in terms of flexural and compressive strength. Besides the evaluation of such properties for classical foamed concrete, the influence of the addition of biochar in the lightweight cementitious paste is comparatively investigated. Two different concentrations of biochar are analyzed, namely 2% and 4% of the cement weight, and two different curing conditions are studied, namely in air and in water at controlled temperature for 28 days. The results demonstrate that better fracture behavior are obtained with 2% biochar and air curing conditions. The biochar additions in moderate concentrations (e.g. 2%) seems to make the fracture surface more tortuous, thus justifying the numerical outcomes, and does not impair the flexural strength. Further microstructural investigation is underway to confirm the experimental observations. This research paves the way for a promising construction material that is more environmentally friendly and sustainable than traditional materials used in the building industry. K EYWORDS . Foamed concrete; Fracture Energy; Biochar; CMOD; Curing conditions; Lightweight concretes. Citation: Falliano, D., De Domenico, D., Sciarrone, A., Ricciardi, G., Restuccia, L., Ferro, G., Tulliani, J.M., Gugliandolo, E. Influence of biochar additions on the fracture behavior of foamed concrete, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 51 (2020) 189-198. Received: 08.11.2019 Accepted: 23.11.2019 Published: 01.01.2020 Copyright: © 2020 This is an open access article under the terms of the CC-BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.